Glenville Obrian Lovell is the author
novels, short stories and a number of prize-winning plays.

In 1995, his first novel, Fire in the Canes, was published by Soho Press to wide acclaim, as was his second novel, Song of Night, published in 1998.

Too Beautiful To Die, published by Putnam, introduced volatile black ex-cop Blades Overstreet as a new though somewhat reluctant hero, and garnered praise and comparisons to some of the most illustrious names in the mystery/thriller genre. This was followed by Love and Death in Brooklyn. Both novels, set in New York, are also available for electronic download at Amazon and other online sites. Mr. Lovell won the 2002 Frank Collymore Literary Award for his play Mango Ripe! Mango Sweet! In 2008, his play Going for Love played to standing room only at CARIFESTA X (Caribbean Festival of Arts), in Guyana.

Having toured the globe as a dancer before he became a writer, Glenville sometimes resorts to music and choreography to help understand and develop his characters.

Born in a chattel house in Parish Land, Christ Church, a village on the island of Barbados, he grew up surrounded by sugar cane, shadows and word-magicians. With storytelling all around him: in kitchens, under flamboyant trees at night, in rum shops, he spent as much time picking dunks and golden apples from his backyard as he did "pickin' words from big-people mouths," as his grandmother used to say. Many of these stories turned up in his first novel Fire in the Canes. Glenville now lives in New York and is currently working on a new Blades Overstreet book and another novel set in Barbados.

He wants to say thanks to all those who continue to support him, especially the Caribbean massive everywhere, and to all Bajans who share the pride: Large up wunna self!

Themes of coerced displacement run through these stories as they shift
between the Caribbean and America, arriving doused in magic, musicality
and humor. From the title story about a man trapped in the nightmarish
glare of post 9/11 scrutiny after he forgets a bag in Grand Central
Station; to the deliciously funny but poignant Sweet Destine about a man
unable to deal with his wife’s sexual awakening after they migrate to
America; or the darkly comic and passionate Licks Like Peas, Lovell’s
lyrical prose delights and captures the vibrant rhythms of love, longing
and loss rooted in the Caribbean soul where home is not always where the
heart is.

Blades Overstreet returns in an atmospheric crime novel set in that
mysterious world known as Brooklyn.

Glenville Lovell's first mystery, Too Beautiful to Die, was called a
"page-turner" (New York Daily News) and "stylish entertainment" (Booklist).
Now he's back with a story ripped from today's headlines-a brilliant young
African-American politician gunned down as his career is about to take off.

Ex-cop Blades Overstreet is finally at peace. His case against the NYPD has been
resolved, his estranged wife has come back, and the two of them, along with
Blades's young daughter, have settled into a nice home and a nice life. But
peace is ephemeral on the mean streets of Brooklyn, and when the son of a good
friend and mentor is murdered right before his eyes, Blades knows he won't be
able to rest until the killer is brought to justice.

A debut mystery by a highly regarded author of literary novels, a gritty
African-American noir with the atmosphere of Dashiell Hammett and the
multicultural appeal of Walter Mosely.

Set in New York, Too Beautiful to Die introduces Blades Overstreet, a
black ex-cop, now at odds with the NYPD over the incident that prompted his
resignation-a buy-and-bust operation gone bad when a white cop "accidentally"
shot and nearly killed him. Now, the man who saved Blades's life prevails upon
him to help a beautiful soap-opera star named Precious find her father. But that
assignment quickly turns sour when Blades stumbles on the murdered body of an
FBI agent, and he becomes the target of an FBI/NYPD manhunt.

Blades Overstreet is destined to become one of the great heroes of crime fiction
and Glenville Lovell a new star of the genre.

Cyan is nicknamed "Night" because she is so dark. Bottom Rock is her village,
just five miles from Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. Her father is known as
"Steel"; he is a fisherman who teaches his daughter to love the unspoiled beauty
of their island. Her mother, a foreigner from neighboring St. Lucia, is scorned
as an outsider by the villagers. The smart one in the family is her sister, on
whom her mother's ambitions are focused, but it is feisty Cyan who is her
father's favorite. And then her father kills a man in a fit of jealous rage and
Cyan's tranquil life is changed forever.

In this enchanting novel, ancestral spirits lead Caribbean villagers
out of the lingering shadow of slavery. In the little village of Monkey Road,
almost everyone works in the cane field; the plantation still owns the land. But
when Peata and her beautiful daughter Midra arrive, mysterious and wonderful
things begin to happen. . . .

Fire in the Canes is an epic tale about murder, betrayal, love and longing, a
unique Caribbean blend of the supernatural and of historic fact. It is the story
of young lovers, parted forever after one magical night, and of a people
overcoming the legacy of slavery and regaining pride in themselves and their
ancestors.

From Trench Town to Half Way Tree to Norbrook to Portmore and beyond, the
stories of Kingston Noir shine light into the darkest corners of this fabled
city. Joining award-winning Jamaican authors such as Marlon James, Leone
Ross, and Thomas Glave are two "special guest" writers with no Jamaican
lineage: Nigerian-born Chris Abani and British writer Ian Thomson. The
menacing tone that runs through some of these stories is counterbalanced by
the clever humor in others, such as Kei Miller's “White Gyal with a Camera,”
who softens even the hardest of August Town’s gangsters; and Mr. Brown, the
private investigator in Kwame Dawes’s story, who explains why his girth
works to his advantage: "In Jamaica a woman like a big man. She can see he
is prosperous, and that he can be in charge." Together, the outstanding
tales in Kingston Noir comprise the best volume of short fiction ever to
arise from the literary wellspring that is Jamaica.